A former classmate remembers Kendell Spear, a young man taken too soon

Kendell Spear, a 20-year-old Newark Arts High School graduate, was fatally shot earlier this month. He had come home from school in Florida to surprise his girlfriend for their anniversary. He was killed in front of his childhood home trying to break up a fight, friends said. These are the reflections of one of his high school classmates:

By Shamsuddin “Sham” Abdul-Hamid

Like many of my friends and family, I have been deeply affected by the recent death of my friend, Kendell Spear. I wear the mask and smile for a while but beneath I am gutted.
Growing up in the war zone of Newark, I’ve ignored crime, I’ve plugged my ears when the sound of gunshots erupted during the night. I’ve seen a black man killed and only ever reflected on that as an example of what happens to “bad people.”

Yes, I had become desensitized to death — after all, those lives that were lost belonged to someone else’s family, someone else’s friend, and didn’t truly affect my world. I didn’t know them.

Kendell’s death changed everything. I knew him. He was a good person. His home on Harding Terrace was only two doors down from my grandmother’s house, where I grew up. I would often sit on his porch, where Kendell held court telling jokes and making all of us laugh. We went to Arts High School together. We were at the same prom. I knew his friends. I knew his family.

When I wrote a play that I performed in elementary school, Kendell came out to show support. Years had passed and we had both grown up, but Kendell remembered bits from that play I had since forgotten and urged me every time he saw me to produce something else.

I remember seeing Kendell just a few weeks before his passing. He was walking up the block, smiling as usual. He didn’t spend a lot of time talking about his problems. Never one to dwell on himself, he quickly changed the subject to me, reminding me of my purpose with that question he always asked: “So … when you writing another play?” That’s the sort of person he was. He kept everyone on their grind and wanted to see all of his friends happy and successful.

It was only a few months ago that people across our nation were sporting hoodies and referring to themselves as Trayvon. The greatest tragedy of all is that our nation’s clarion cry for peace, love and harmony through rallies was not enough to puncture the ignorance of a few young brothers.

If only they saw how well he played the drums, how much he made all of us laugh or knew of his power to make all of those who entered his space feel a little bit better. For if only they could, then they would have loved Kendell as we did. They wouldn’t have been able to help themselves.

I’ve struggled with myriad emotions toward those who caused Kendell’s demise — the most predominant one being hatred on the deepest levels. Yet when I see life through a broader lens, I recognize that although they were able to overtake his body, they were unable to conquer his spirit. Kendell’s luminous and ever-funny spirit is what will live on in the hearts and minds of those who knew him.

When I think on those terms, I don’t feel hate for anyone and my heart opens up and love and forgiveness are ushered in. As absurd as this may sound at the moment, I pray that his friends and family can in time find some semblance of forgiveness for whoever did this. I hope that his life will shine as a study in love and that it propels me and the entire world to walk through our lives with that much more spice and purpose.

We shouldn’t — I shouldn’t — hate these young men for what they have done. After all, they have been hated enough already by life. It is love that they are bereft of. Let us not allow hatred to extinguish the light that Kendell’s life shed. Let’s keep it burning on and on and on through our love.

Shamsuddin “Sham” Abdul-Hamid is an actor and playwright and a student at Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of the Arts. Share your thoughts at njvoices.com.